Contactless or proximity cards are low in price and are commonly used in applications such as identification cards, keycards, payment cards and public transit fare cards. Contactless cards use radio frequency transmit/receive electronics to transfer data so they do not have to be put through a card reader.
Individual vendors have defined their own proprietary encoding schemes such as Mifare, Legic and I-class.
All of these cards operate at 13.56 MHz, and claimed read ranges vary from 10 cm up to 1 metre depending on the modulation and data rate used. Contactless cards have less storage memory than contact cards however, the convenience of use is greatly improved.
Contacless cards continue to grow in popularity because of the convenience they offer in security, identification and access control applications - especially door access where fast, hands-free operation is preferred.
The Magicard Rio and Tango have Contactless Smart card encoders available as an option. The encoder allows cards to be initialized and pre-loaded with data prior to printing.